Dive brief:
- Meijer Expands Small-Scale Grocery Concept Outside of Home State of Michigan, Tuesday announcement plans to open a 40,000 square foot store in Cleveland, Ohio.
- The grocery store is part of a future $ 52.8 million mixed-use development that includes a 196-unit apartment complex in the city’s Fairfax neighborhood. The project started on Tuesday and the grocery store could open as early as 2023.
- The next store aims to tackle food insecurity in the region and, like its other small-format markets, will offer fresh food, “artisan groceries” and a mix of private and national brands at low prices.
Dive overview:
Fairfax Market, as the development is known at this point, marks the fifth entry into Meijer’s new small-format market concept which brings the supercentre retailer into more densely populated areas.
The Ohio project aims to tackle food insecurity while boosting local economic development, with 50 new jobs available at the grocery store, according to the press release. Fairfax is an urban food desert because of its lack of accessible supermarkets, according to the USDA.
The grocer is working with the City of Cleveland, the Cleveland Clinic, the Fairfax Renaissance Development Corporation and developer Fairmount Properties on the project. Fairfax Market will be located at the corner of East 105th Street and Cedar Avenue.
“The store will occupy a corner of the gateway to the Fairfax neighborhood and help stimulate further development,” Denise VanLeer, executive director of the Fairfax Renaissance Development Corporation, said in a statement. “The location allows residents easy access to fresh food and offers walkability while activating Cedar Avenue.
The project came to fruition after the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, a nonprofit academic medical center, and community leaders and residents discussed in 2018 how to support the region.
Meijer was selected after officials from the Cleveland Clinic visited the retailer’s store Bridge Street Market in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which opened in 2018 and kicked off the rollout of small stores for Meijer. The grocer has opened other “neighborhood” grocery stores, including Rivertown Woodward Corner Market and Market.
In addition to these stores, averaging around 40,000 square feet, Meijer plans to build a grocery store in Orion Township, Michigan, that would be about 90,000 square feet, less than half the size of the retailer’s typical location.
Smaller formats allow Meijer to open stores in areas where its larger locations would not be suitable, and to try out grocery products and services that it can adapt to the rest of its fleet.
Meijer is one of several grocers who have advertised smaller formats this year including Schnuck Markets, Sprouts Farmers Market and Lowes Foods. Farewell opened a store that’s a third the size of its average location in a rural Iowa community that was at risk of becoming a food desert.
